Wednesday, February 1, 2017

MISS PEG OGLETREE

Long
before Miss Peg Ogletree was the star member of Mrs. Carpenter’s music pupils,
long before she spent countless secret hours learning STARDUST by heart, so her
Daddy would be surprised she’d learnt his favorite song for her Senior Recital,
and even longer before she was left on her own on to maintain the little family
place, she was a long-legged little girl, lively as quicksilver, and special
even then.

When she was in first grade, she was smart and clever, learning her Arithmetic
and Writing in a flash, and always bringing in her take-home pages in her
neater-than-most printing. She loved Rhythm Band day, hoping ever for the
triangle amongst all those red clacky sticks and the maracas and scratchy
boards, and when the Music Teacher sat down at the piano, Peg was too rapt
looking at those graceful, competent hands on the keys to much mind her own
instrument.

And when her Mama took her to her first Piano Recital that May, in a
stiff-starched little dress and her wire-spring hair painstakingly smoothed
down with Tame and four barrettes, she was absolutely transported.

She
asked her Daddy that very night if she could take piano lessons, and she was
“taken on” for the Summer, going into town two days a week for lessons at Mrs.
Carpenter’s house, to “see if her heart's in it,”---Mrs. C’s euphemism for “if
she can learn the notes, practice and listen to what I teach her.”

Peggy
was admitted that next Fall into the two dozen or so of Mrs. Carpenter’s
regular pupils, and the half hours at twelve-thirty on Mondays and Thursdays
were some of her favorite moments of the week. She learned the names of the
notes and their positions on the staff in the first week’s time, practicing
without any prompting on the already-old piano which had belonged to her Aunt
Idell when she was a little girl.

And her Heart WAS in it---she wanted to Play, she wanted to Make Music, and she
wanted above all to play like Mrs. Carpenter.

For
an unprecedented thing had happened at that first Spring Recital---instead of
just the steady plod of the beginners, then the flow, then the beautiful rush
of the progressively more practiced students, there was a special

treat.
Mrs. Carpenter herself walked onto the stage at the end of the little
intermission. She told the audience that in honor of her late Mother’s
hundredth birthday, she was going to play her Mom’s favorite song, Rustle of Spring.

The windows of that big old creaky-floored school auditorium were open, and the
muggy air lay on them all like a wet flannel sheet; the buzz-bugs circled the
room in the stage-lights like mini-buzzards, and a dozen little girls in stiff
taffeta-and-net dresses squirmed in shiny discomfort as Mrs. C. touched that
much-pounded keyboard and brought forth something that room and most of those
folks had never heard.

She
usually stood in the wings, her beige lace mother-of-the-groom dress stretched
tight over her vast bosom as she counted out the time the children SHOULD have
been playing. They had all heard her play at church, or during a little section
of their lessons to give them the proper example, but this was Magic.

THIS---this was water falling
and leaves swirling and fairies dancing; it was like a MidSummer Night’s Dream,
with Titania and Oberon peeking out from behind those dusty maroon curtains,
with that enchanted forest misty on the stage, and all those whimsical
creatures arrayed behind trees and looking down from the foliage---just from
being inside the encompassing circle of that perfect piece of music.